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Marvel is Considering Richard Rider Nova for Cosmic Movies

Writer and director James Gunn is not only returning to direct Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and executive producing Avengers: Infinity War, but he's also helping plan out the long-term future of the cosmic side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe or at least, the next 10-20 years worth! And for you Nova fans out there, yes, he and Marvel Studios are indeed considering introducing the "real" Nova, Richard Rider.

That last part is a nod to Marvel Comics character Sam Alexander as asked by a fan during a live Facebook Q&A hosted by James Gunn today as the last question.

"Yes, definitely. Nova comes up occasionally as someone we might use. One of the things I'm doing with creating Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 - that will take place after the next two Avengers movies - and it will help to setup the next 10-20 years of Marvel movies. It's going to really expand the cosmic universe. We're going to be setting up new characters. It will be the last movie of this version of Guardians of the Galaxy."

Sam, the younger and newer Nova, wasn't quite as well received as Rider when the Nova comic series was rebooted in recent years in Marvel Comics. More recently the original Richard Rider Nova returned though and the pair teamed up. Still, for anyone who knows the best of modern Marvel cosmic, the quintessential Nova adventures arguably come from Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning's (collectively referred to as "DnA" by fans) genius run of stories from 2006-2011 featuring a mature Nova Prime serving as the last surviving member of the faction. It's Abnett and Lanning's work that relaunched the Guardians of the Galaxy as we currently know them (with Peter Quill as their leader) and it's this very work that served as inspiration for James Gunn's live-action Guardians of the Galaxy movies.

Nova (Richard Rider) and Star-Lord (Peter Quill) Cover Art

Gunn even had Abnett and Lanning re-team to do the official tie-in comic for the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. It'd be wonderful if they get a chance to do something similar in the future if Nova gets his own film. And to be clear, Nova was indeed introduced in the first Guardians of the Galaxy as a police force of sorts protecting Xandar - the planet that Ronan the Accuser aimed to destroy during the climax of the film. Their key members were played by Peter Serafinowicz, Glenn Close, and John C. Reilly but this take on Nova Corps treated its membership as pilots and guards and little more, despite being from a planet just getting out of an intergalactic war (with Ronan's blue-skinned people, the Kree). In the comics Nova members are super-powered protectors of the galaxy as a whole and do a lot more than fly tiny little ships that make weird energy webs.

How Gunn, Marvel Studios boss and planner Kevin Feige, and Marvel Studios address the significant discrepancy between what's been shown in the MCU and what's in the comics remains to be seen but it's easy to consider a situation where the Nova Corps we saw was only a fraction of the organization. And after their embarrassing failure to stop one, unarmed falling brick of ship (the Dark Aster) from easily entering the atmosphere of their capital city and Nova headquarters, perhaps it's time to invest in something more powerful, maybe even developing the Worldmind (a sentient supercomputer) - the source and database of the Nova Corps power and knowledge in the comics.

Do yourself a favor and start reading Annihilation and then Annihilation: Conquest, and follow DnS's Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy series. Thank us later.